Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been accused of being “addicted to secrecy” as the country’s parliament debated a controversial proposed law that would exempt the workings of its National Cabinet from public scrutiny.
The cabinet, comprised of the PM, state premiers and territory leaders, was formed in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The government claims that body’s decisions should be afforded the same protections from disclosure requests as the federal cabinet.
The issue came to the fore when the government refused a Freedom of Information (FOI) application by South Australian Independent Senator Rex Patrick relating to a May 2020 National Cabinet meeting, arguing they were “an official record of the cabinet.”
An Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) ruled against the government last month, but top government officials continue to insist that the National Cabinet is a committee of the federal ministerial cabinet and not subject to FOI requests.
Earlier this month, the government proposed legislation that would extend secrecy protections in the FOI Act to all National Cabinet minutes and meetings, saying “confidentiality of information and decision-making” is “critical” to its functioning.
On Monday, as the Senate’s finance and public administration committee examined the proposed law, Senator Patrick called it “delusional” and told the government to “cut the crap.”
“The prime minister is clearly absolutely addicted to secrecy and what he did was quite disrespectful to the conventions, the longstanding conventions of responsible government in Australia,” Patrick told the Guardian.
New South Wales Senator Tim Ayres also questioned why the Senate would be “persuaded by a set of arguments” that had already been “rejected entirely” by the AAT.
Information Commissioner Angelene Falk expressed concern with the way the legislation was drafted – arguing that it opened the door for the prime minister to cloak other government bodies in secrecy by declaring them cabinet committees.
Falk also denied the government’s claim that it had consulted her office when formulating the legislation, saying she was unaware of any of her state and territory counterparts being asked for their inputs to the bill.
Meanwhile, the Australian Human Rights Commission told the Senate committee that the proposed bill would increase levels of non-transparency across as many as 15 separate laws.
Noting that the proposed changes involve “permanent change(s) to confidentiality rules over public policy,” HRC President Rosalind Croucher said it was important that “emergency situations do not become a broad justification for unnecessary increases in executive power to the detriment of democracy.”
The Law Council of Australia – the top body representing the legal profession – has also argued that the current FOI exemptions are sufficient to stop the disclosure of information in cases where the risk of potential harm to national interests outweighed the public interest.
Last week, Australia Capital Territory Chief Minister Andrew Barr – a member of the National Cabinet – had called the legislation a “solution looking for a problem” and disclosed that there were “not that many things” tackled by the body that could be “considered so secretive as to not be able to be pretty freely discussed.”
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
source: RT
Împotriva articolelor redacției noastre, persoanele nemulțumite pot formula Contestație în termen de 10 zile de la publicarea articolului, la judecătoria Orășenească nr. 1 München Bayern Deutschland, in conformitate cu Legea federală Germană. Considerăm că nu se pot formula acțiuni la instanțele din România deoarece nici o persoană care activează în trustul nostru nu poate fi extrasă de sub jurisdicția federală germană. Considerăm că redacția noastră nu răspunde în fața autorităților din România ci doar celor federale sau civile germane. deoarece legea română nu are efecte de extraneitate asupra redacției chiar dacă subiectul știrilor face obiectul unor evenimente sau persoane din România și sunt scrise în limba română. Limba română nu este izvor de extraneitate a legii.
absolvent WEB DESIGN Academia Britanică de Comunicare Iasi - absolvent COMUNICARE IN AFACERI Academia Britanica de Afaceri si Comunicare -absolvent JURNALISM EDITORIAL - London School University - 2019 inscris la echivalare diploma la Universitatea Politehnica Timisoara - absolvent studii de Drept Universitatea Europeană Drăgan, cursuri in Drept la Universitatea de Vest Timisoara, absolvent studii de proiectare, pastor coordonator in Biserica Protestanta Evanghelica,
Android Developer pe Google Play și plugin developer la Oxwall, creator de teme Wordpress și Oxwall, operator Wordpress, Drupal, Oxwall, Osclass, Moodle, tehnologii HTML și PHP
Iranian FM Hossein Amirabdollahian has again refrained from saying exactly when Tehran plans to return to talks aimed at reviving the nuclear deal, instead philosophizing about the meaning of the word “soon” in Iran and the West. On Friday, Amirabdollahian told reporters in New York that the stalled negotiations on bringing back the so-called Joint […]
Singapore’s Ministry of Health (MOH) has taken down a chatbot tool after it dispensed a series of “misaligned” responses – including safe sex advice – to questions about Covid-19 concerns. The gaffes were widely shared online. When the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, called ‘Ask Jamie’, was asked what to do by a parent whose daughter had […]
Gas stations across Iran were out of service on Tuesday after an alleged cyberattack brought down the smart fuel system, which allows citizens in the sanction-hit country to buy gasoline at a reduced price. Long queues of cars have been reported at gas stations across Iran after the electronic cards suddenly stopped working shortly before […]
